1 Samuel 2:1-3 – Lessons on Worship from Hannah

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 14 June 2020

Introduction

• A lot of the Psalms I’ve preached on lately towards the end of the first book of Psalms are “trouble songs” with pleas for God to intervene and bring deliverance from trouble. It is good to sing to the Lord when we are down and anxious. But it is also good to sing to the Lord during the good times when we are happy, so it’s a joy to study a “triumph Psalm” by Hannah after all the trouble Psalms by David!

• The Song of Hannah, recorded in 1 Samuel chapter 2 was delivered as a prayer at the tabernacle by a middle-aged woman a couple of years after God gave her her first child.

  • This was a moment of triumph for her. She had been criticized for years for her barrenness; it felt like a curse from God to be childless.

  • But she had prayed for a child, promising God that if He answered her prayer in the affirmative, she would give that child to Him to serve in the tabernacle his whole life, as soon as he was weaned.

  • And God gave her a son in answer to her prayer, and now here she was at the house of God with little Samuel, worshipping the Lord with him and handing him over to the priests to serve in the tabernacle for the rest of his life.

• Hannah opens with four statements about the result of her faith in the one true God. The verbs are all perfect tense in Hebrew, so I rendered them all in English perfect tense. Although it is kind-of past-tense, she is still experiencing these four results of faith in Yahweh

• Then she goes on in v.2 to speak of God’s incomparable greatness and to warn in v.3 against being proud around God. Every word teaches us poignant lessons about how to worship God – and now not to to worship Him. Let’s learn all we can from this!

v.1 Then Hannah prayed and said, “My heart has been exuberant in Yahweh; my “horn” has risen up in Yahweh; my mouth has gone wide over my enemies; I have become happy in Your salvation,

1. The 1^st statement is pretty straightforward: She is exuberantly happy, rejoicing in the LORD.

• This reminds me of Psalm 5:11 “… all who take refuge in You will be happy, they will sing out forever... lovers of Your name will exult in You!” (NAW)

• John Gill remarked in his commentary that “[T]his joy of Hannah's was not worldly, but spiritual… it was not in her son the Lord had given her, but in the goodness and kindness of the Lord... she rejoiced not in her husband, nor in the wealth and riches they were possessed of... but in the Lord, the giver of all...”

• Joy is part of the Christian’s experience too. All the New Testament writers wrote of it.

  • Jesus said, “... I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." (John 16:22, KJV)

  • Paul said, "...we have access by faith [in Christ] into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." (Rom. 5:2, KJV)

  • and he even commanded in Philippians 4:4 “rejoice in the Lord always”!

• We might consider, however, what it means to rejoice “in the LORD.” I believe that the word “in” here means “in the context of a good personal relationship with” Him.

  • That involves filling our minds with His words – as we’ll see Hanna did;

  • it involves obeying His word – as we also see Hannah did in offering sacrifices properly and fulfilling her vows;

  • it involves trusting that the sacrifice God prescribed will indeed make her right with Him – as we see in her boldness to pray fervently in God’s presence after offering the sacrifice,

  • and it involves living in relationship with Him as our God – again, we see Hannah calling Him “our God” in v.2.

  • This filling our minds with God’s word, obeying Him, trusting in His salvation, and walking in relationship with Him as “our God” is also described in the New Testament, most prominently in Ephesians 1: “...to the faithful in Christ Jesus... Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us… in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him... he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace... That... he might gather together in one all things in Christ... In whom also we have obtained an inheritance... That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ… after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise...” (KJV) Are you “in Christ” and experiencing His joy?

• Hannah sure was! “My heart has been exuberant in Yahweh” describes the last couple of years between the last time Hannah had been in the tabernacle and now. She has been so excited to hold this little miracle baby in her arms and nurse him and play with him. What a joy it has been, and she shares that joy with God! Will you share your joy with God too?

2. Hannah’s second statement is a little more obscure: “my horn has risen up.”

• 22 out of the 25 times that this Hebrew word for “horn” occurs before 1 Samuel in the Bible, it means a ram’s or a bull’s horn – or something shaped like that.¹ But Hannah calls it, “my horn,” and I’ve never met a woman who has horns, so I think we need to look for a figurative meaning.

• This Hebrew word for “horn” has a root meaning of “that which protrudes outward,” and it occurs three times in Ex.34 to describe the glory of God “radiating” out of Moses’ face,

  • so another possible translation would be to render the word “horn” intangibly as, “my issue has risen up,” indicating that her prayer came out of her and up to God,

  • however, the more-tangible thing that “issued” of her body – that is, the son that she had given birth to – seems more likely to be what she’s talking about. Hannah certainly is rejoicing that God gave her a child and that this child is growing up healthily.

  • The verb “lifted up/exalted” was also used in the Law of Moses to describe “wave” offerings which were not burnt up on the sacrificial altar, but merely lifted up in a gesture of offering to the Lord and then handed over to the priests and Levites for their use, and that is what Hannah was doing with her little offspring.

• I am intrigued, however, with another interpretation that I think is even more likely, and that is based on the last use of this word for “horn” in the Bible, before 1 Samuel, in Joshua chapter 6.: For six days, the priests were to carry ram’s horns by their sides and walk around the city of Jericho with the people of Israel, but on the seventh day, they were to raise those horns to their lips and blow for all they were worth, and the walls would come tumbling down.

  • I wonder if this was perhaps what Hannah was thinking of when she said her horn was up. In other words, “This is my moment of triumph. I’ve got the trumpet to my lips instead of down at my side, and I’m going to toot my horn now, because God is coming through, and nobody can stop us!”

  • If so, it would fit well with the next phrase in verse 1, which speaks of “opening [her] mouth wide” and “boasting loudly over” her foe.

  • And if we look at all the other passages in the Old Testament which speak of “lifting up the horn,” it appears they consistently stand parallel to phrases about gloating, triumphing, boasting, and revelling in glory².

  • We’ll see Hannah make the parallel statement in v.10 of raising the horn of His anointed one.

  • This kind of boasting is a Biblical act of worship, for instance in Ps. 34:2 “ Boasting about Yahweh is what my soul will do. Lowly men will hear and be happy.” (NAW)

  • This is also in the experience of the New Testament believer! 1 Corinthians 1:31 says, "The one who boasts in the Lord, let him keep boasting!" (NAW³). The thought is continued in Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (KJV) Are you bragging about Jesus in such a way that those oppressed by sin will gain the hope of salvation?

3. This leads us to Hannah’s third statement in v.1. It makes sense, whether we translate it literally: “my mouth enlarged/went wide” [Gasp! Ha Ha! I’m pregnant! God has given me a child too!] or figuratively: “boast/speak boldly over/against my enemies.”

• We see the same phrase in Psalm 35:21 “...my enemies... opened their mouth wide over me; they said, ‘Aha! Aha!…’” (NAW) It’s the body-language of triumph.

• Now, Peninnah seems to be the only person portrayed as Hannah’s enemy in this text, so why does Hannah speak of plural “enemies”?

  • I imagine⁴ Peninnah’s children probably joined with their mom in speaking derisively to Hannah. Children are quick to imitate our bad attitudes and habits and even take them one step further, aren’t they? We must be careful what attitudes we allow ourselves to show around our children. But anyway, that could have been why Hannah saw this as a situation with more than one enemy.

  • On the other hand, I think it’s possible that Hannah could have used the plural for “enemies” because she saw that we contend not only with flesh and blood, but also against spiritual enemies – in the world and the flesh and the devil. David Tsumura noted in his recent commentary that, “God’s enemies… are Hannah’s enemies too… because his enemies attack her trust in God and his dealings with her.” But this affirmative answer to her prayer for a child strengthened her faith to trust God to bring victory over every other enemy she would ever face in every future circumstance. We should certainly use answers to prayer to bolster our faith for future challenges.

4. Hannah’s fourth and final statement about the result of her faith is, “I have become happy/rejoiced in Your salvation/deliverance”

• The immediate context of Hannah’s salvation/deliverance experience, of course, was that God gave her a son, even though she had not been able to have a child.

• Notice that Hanna didn’t come back to God and say, “Hey, thanks for the brat, but since I have give him back to You, thanks for nothing. Now, if you’d give me the same amount of children as Peninnah, then I’d be happy.” No! Hannah’s relationship with God was such that even one child from the Lord – even one that she could only hold for a couple of years – satisfied her and made her happy.

• In other words, her happiness was not based on how many children she had or how many things she had, but rather on appreciating what God had given her.

• Matthew Henry commented on this passage that “Praise is our rent, our tribute. We are unjust if we do not pay it [to God]… What we win by prayer we may wear with comfort, and must wear with praise.”

• Here is another wonderful lesson to us whose lives are glutted with things. We have so many blessings from God that we hardly even think to thank Him for them. We are tempted to think that if we had just one more thing then we’d be happy, and we think God is somehow holding out on us when other people have more things than we do, and we struggle with feeling that God is somehow unfair to us. What utter nonsense! That one more thing won’t make you happy. Things don’t people happy. A good relationship with God is the only thing that makes people happy. If you will choose to see your relationships and your possessions as blessings from God and delight in them as His gifts, you will find happiness so deep that you’ll be totally satisfied.

• Now after four statements about how her relationship with God has benefited her, Hannah makes four more statements explaining the reasons why all these good things have come about in her life:

v.2 for there is no one holy like Yahweh, and there is no one righteous like our God; there is no one besides You, and there is no rock like our God!

1. First Hannah states that He is holy, and she adds that not only is He holy, but He is uniquely holy with no one being comparable to Him in holiness.

• In this, she is merely repeating the doctrinal statement made over and over again in the book of Leviticus, where God says, “...I am holy… I am holy… I am holy….” (Lev. 11:44&45, 19:2; 20:26; 21:8)

• “Holiness” can be defined positively as “faithfulness” in developing personal relationships; it can also be defined negatively as being “unblemished” by evil. Hannah proclaims Yahweh, the one God of the Bible, to be more faithful in interpersonal relationships and more unblemished by evil than anyone else. Do you believe that’s true? ‘Cause it is!

• This phrase “there is none holy” also indicates that, not only is Yahweh faithful and sinless, it is also a fact that nobody else is holy. Not only is this an expression of worship to God, it is a theological statement about the fallenness of humanity. We have all failed other people in relationships and we have all become tainted by evil, so we all need help from the one person who is above all our problems, and that is the Lord, whom we know now as Jesus.

2. The second phrase, “there is no one righteous like our God” is in the oldest-known and longest-used Bibles, but is not in modern Bibles because of scholarly competition between the currently-popular Masoretic Hebrew manuscripts (supported by the Vulgate which dates to the 5th^th century AD) and the formerly-popular Septuagint Greek manuscripts (supported by the Dead Sea Scrolls which date back to the 1^st century BC). I’m including it because it was apparently in most Bibles at the time of Christ, and it matches the rest of the doctrine of Scripture.

• In this second phrase, Hannah seems to be quoting from the Song of Moses. Deut. 32:4, “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.” (NKJV)

• Notice the synonyms to the word “righteous” in Moses’ song: “perfect, just, faithful, true, without injustice, upright.” Righteousness has to do with integrity and consistency with the standard of what is right and fair. Once again, Hanna affirms that God is more righteous than anybody else, and no human has such goodness and integrity.

3. In Hannah’s third reason, she states that there are no exceptions. The Lord Yahweh – and no one besides Him – is holy and righteous, and He never fails to be holy and righteous; He never makes an exception which breaches His integrity.

• This reflects the statement that God made in Exodus 22:20, where the same Hebrew word is used to teach that sacrifices should be made to no one besides God. There should be no exception to the rule of worshipping God and God alone.

• This is the Old Testament foundation of the Reformed doctrine known as Solo Deo Gloria: “To God alone be the glory.”

• A New Testament foundation for that doctrine is in Ephesians 2: “...by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, lest any one should boast.” In other words, if you can’t save yourself by good works – if you can’t muster up enough faith to please God, then you can’t take any credit for sharing in God’s glory when Jesus says, “Enter into my Father’s joy,” on Judgment Day. All we can do is thank God for saving us. He alone deserves all glory.

• So, don’t try to draw other people’s attention to how good you are and steal the limelight from God. He alone deserves glory.

4. The fourth and final reason stated by Hannah is that “there is no rock like our God.⁵”

• As we’ve already seen, Moses compared God to a “rock,” 300 years before, in Deuteron. 32:

  • God is the “rock of [Israel’s] salvation” (Deut. 32:15),

  • He is the “rock who begot” Israel (v.18),

  • and in v.37, a “rock” is the supernatural relationship in which they “take refuge.”

• So this is once again a theological statement informed by the Torah – the part of the Bible which existed in Hannah’s day.

  • Hannah’s knowledge of God was not based on mystical spiritual encounters,

  • it was not built on existential experiences and feelings;

  • it was not built on mere scientific observation

  • or consensus of human opinion;

  • it was built on the written word of God.

  • That is the only place to get accurate information about God!

  • That is why we read the Bible.

  • That is why we read it to our children.

  • That is why we are careful about all the other spiritual books and magazines and pamphlets and podcasts and shows and movies and seminars and newscasts clamoring for our attention.

• One hundred years later, David will take up the same refrain in the Psalms about God being a “landmark-rock” fortress where there is refuge and protection from evil, and in 1 Corinthians 10:4, the Messianic fulfillment is announced: “that rock was Christ.”

• Is God your go-to, when you feel threatened by evil?

  • Some folks try other escape mechanisms like fiction novels, games, and movies, but those things never deliver anybody from evil, they just distract you from noticing evil while it gets worse.

  • Some folks try drugs when they are threatened by evil,

    • whether that’s natural feel-good hormones from eating food, listening to music , getting physical exercise or sexual experiences,

    • or whether it’s man-made drugs that are drunk or smoked or injected.

    • But none of these things ever protected anybody from evil, either. They just distract your mind temporarily while the evil gets worse.

  • Some folks seek refuge in other people;

    • they trust the Army and the Police to keep them safe from harm,

    • they trust the banks and insurance companies to keep them safe from losses,

    • they trust doctors and other experts to solve their health and social problems,

    • they trust businesses to keep them employed and to supply all their needs,

    • and they trust friends and neighbors to look out for them.

    • But people are evil too; they aren’t capable of saving you from evil. In the face of things like a new virus pandemic and mass-unemployment and race-riots in every major city, no human being – not even an army of them – can save you.

• There is no rock like our God.

  • He alone can control the development of virus-outbreaks,

  • provide flour and oil to the widow,

  • and turn the hearts of kings and of mobs any way He wishes.

  • There’s nothing necessarily wrong with using police and banks and doctors, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with food and music and even legal drugs; we just can’t put our trust in them like we do in God.

  • Jesus is the rock we should go to first for deliverance from evil.

• Now, after uttering this amazing, Biblicaly-based prayer, Hannah turns to warn against speaking in any other way than with respectful worship toward God.

v.3 Don’t overdo [it when] y’all talk high [and] mighty. [Don’t] let careless-speech go out from y’all’s mouth, for Yahweh is the God of know­ledge, and licen­tious-deeds are not worth [it].

• This reminds me of Psalm 73:6-12 “...pride serves as their necklace... They scoff and speak wickedly concerning oppression; They speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens, And their tongue walks through the earth... And they say, ‘How does God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High?’ Behold, these are the ungodly...” (NKJV)

• Well, here’s the answer: Yes, God does know, and yes, there is knowledge with the Most High!

• The Proverbs say, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts... If you say, ‘Surely we did not know this,’ Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?” (Proverbs 21:2 & 24:12, KJV)

• And Psalm 31:18 says, “Lips that speak falsehood against the righteous – licentious-speech with haughtiness and scorn will be shut up.” (NAW)

• Now, different Bibles have interpreted the last phrase of verse 3 differently since at least the time of Christ:

  • The most widely-used Septuagint manuscript from the 4^th century reads, “God prepares his own designs.”

  • The fifth century Vulgate reads, “to him are thoughts prepared.”

  • A pre-Masoretic Hebrew tradition reads: “not worthy are licentious-deeds.”

  • The 10^th century Masoretic Hebrew margin note reads, “by him actions are weighed.”

  • And the scholarly author of the 2007 NICOT commentary renders it, “(his) deeds are immeasurable.”

  • These may sound like big differences, but the dispute is only over a single Hebrew letter⁶.

• God has seen to it that the resulting variants could all be true. The basic idea in every version is that God has the final say; He is the ultimate judge of human thought and action, and proud, careless, wanton words from humans will be shown for what what they are: no good.

  • The only other occurrence of this word [עֲלִלוֹת] for “deeds/actions/thoughts” in the Bible before 1 Samuel was in Deuteronomy 22, describing scandalous behavior.

  • I think this word is intended to parallel the word for “arrogant, careless speech” [עָתָק] in the middle of this verse and to parallel the word for “haughty speech” [גְבֹהָה] at the beginning of this verse.

• The exhortation is, “You can’t get away with careless, unbridled, exaggerated, wanton words; God hears them all and will bring them all to judgment and show them to be the foolishness and worthlessness that they are, so don’t talk like that.

  • This is why we need to be careful with what we say,

  • not criticizing before we understand,

  • not passing along information when we don’t know whether it’s true or false,

  • and not exaggerating details,

  • not commenting too quickly,

  • not blurting out just anything that comes to mind,

  • and not speaking too highly of ourselves.

• Puritan commentator Andrew Willett summarized: “By Hannah, let women learne to lay aside all wanton and vnwomanly songs, and sing onely to the praise of God.”

• I might add that this is not just applicable to women but to men too.

• I might also add that, just as Hannah made a significant contribution to the worship of all believers, so the women of the church can still make contributions, such as writing songs, writing blogs or books, and making banners or other things of beauty, so don’t be shy to share the fruits of your labors with the church in a Biblical and orderly way.

Conclusion

• Contrast of attitudes and words. Instead of being proud, haughty, careless, selfish, or edgy, Hannah’s attitude is one of loosing herself in the Lord and simply extolling Him, basing her words on the Bible. That is our example for worship!

1 Samuel 2:1-3 - Side-by side comparison of versions^A